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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27326761">Keep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/maya_brainstormed'>maya_brainstormed (mayachain)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brotherly Love, Community: mini_nanowrimo, Dick Grayson is Ric Grayson, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Priorities, Sibling Love, oops I fridged Talia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:36:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>659</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27326761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/maya_brainstormed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What’s important right now is getting to Damian.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassandra Cain &amp; Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne, Jason Todd &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>195</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Keep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tim is minding his own business in front of his computer when he gets an alert. A completely minor thing, at first glance, but Tim routinely glances at least three times and when he sees what this is, he looks seven times for good measure and then subjects the subject at hand to extra scrutiny.</p><p>The scrutiny holds. Something major has gone down with the League of Assassins. </p><p>It’s far too late to do anything to change it now. Maybe he could have set his feelers up better to prevent what happened, but that’s a question for later. Right now, it’s not important.</p><p>No. What’s important right now is getting to Damian.</p><p>At Titan’s Tower, the set-up is completely different and the thing that alerts Damian to what has happened is nothing like the minor change in the currents that alerted Tim. The outcome is the same.</p><p>The outcome is not the same.</p><p>Damian always thought that if his mother ever truly died he would either go on a revenge spree or be right there fighting against her and thus relieved, if guiltily so.</p><p>Reality is different.</p><p>There are things he could do. Things to find more about the circumstances, how if happened, who did it, why, and how to murder the person who had the audacity. And the skill.</p><p>He does none of them right now.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long he sits there in the Tower’s communications center, radiating distress, frozen, throwing off don’t-touch-me vibes so hard even Jon doesn’t dare approach him.</p><p>It’s an infinite amount of time later that the zeta lights up and there are footsteps, and Damian wants everyone to keep away but the footsteps don’t stop, they don’t stop until they’re right next to where he’s sitting on the floor (when did he end up on the floor) and then someone sits down next to him and doesn’t touch him and doesn’t say anything, just sits, and Damian knew who it was the moment the first footstep fell, and it’s not who he wants to be here but it is his brother, and so he leans his head sideways just the tiniest bit and Drake leans toward him also and so they sit there, leaning against each other by their temples, not too close but a clear connection, Damian leaning a little harder because his mother is dead and he really, really needs Tim to support him.</p><p>The peace is broken by a bang. There are startled shouts from the Titans at the edge of Damian’s awareness, but he couldn’t care less right now, unless someone goes in for an actual full-out attack this very second Damian has nothing to give.</p><p>There are footsteps again, heavier this time, and they stop just behind Damian and Tim and then Jason says “shit, kid” and hugs him.</p><p>And Damian doesn’t cry, won’t cry, but he lets Jason hug him and leans against Drake and maybe allows himself to check out a bit, because the next thing he knows, there is Cass settling in in front of him, and Stephanie guarding the door, and Richard.</p><p>Richard.</p><p>“So Jason called and said if I didn’t come I wouldn’t deserve to get to know you, like, ever,” Ric Grayson says – </p><p>– and it’s not Richard, it’s not Dick come to give him the hug he has craved <i>so much</i> ever since the news registered, but Ric is here, sitting next to Damian, part of the support-Damian Bat-and-Robin pile, an awkward hand on Damian’s knee.</p><p>Father is not here.</p><p>Father has priorities.</p><p>But Tim came as soon as he heard, and Jason, and Cass, and Steph, and Tim made sure Damian was not alone and Jason made sure that Ric came, Damian is Ric’s priority, and Cassandra’s, and Stephanie’s. </p><p>He’ll have to check out the footage of his teammates’ faces when the Red Hood came in.</p><p>Eventually.</p><p>Right now, he’ll sit here until he feels like rejoining the world.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
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